I have been out of beekeeping since 2003, read no literature since 1998. With that said again, I was in Upstate NY The reading I did, indicated that a truly strong colony should contain approx. 100,000 bees
after work is distributed you would want a 50,000 worker force foraging for honey. the remainders would be cleaning, brood rearing, comb building, guard duty, propolizing everything shut, receiving nectar from incoming field bees and of course a few hundred drones. I would like to know if that thinking is even possible, as I said was from 1998 reading and from up north--I believe that can happen through manipulation, but would you really want so strong a colony, assuming you supered adequately, and prevented swarming--that is a colony with enough workers to truly harvest the nectar. Again I intend to try to achieve that result of approx 100,000 work force but should I and I also know that wears out a other wise good queen fast. any thoughts.
Barry
It is said that a queen can lay "up to" 2000 eggs a day. It is also said during the flow a bee lives a maximum 6 weeks. Using those numbers, a hive could never exceed 84 thousand with only one queen. I think 60 thousand is a VERY strong hive.